At 04:12 PM 2 April 2002 -0500, Barbara and/or Bill Hooper wrote: >on 1 April 2002 9:40 AM, Jim Elwell at [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > > > The world is most assuredly NOT running low on energy. We have more > > reserves of every fossil fuel we use today than we did 10, 20 or 50 years > > ago. > >Surely this cannot be true if the word "reserves" refers to supplies of >these fossil fuels in the ground. After all, during the past 10, 20 or 50 >years we have certainly burned up a lot of this fossile fuel. During this >time, NO ONE HAS MADE ANY FRESH SUPPLIES, as far as I know.
Of course, '"reserves" means "known reserves." Bill's basic point is correct, in that no more is being created. >It is a fact that we are running out, not because we may or may not have >more "reserves", but because IT DOESN'T MATTER how much we have in reserves. >Quibbling about how much reserves are left is just quibbling about whether >we will run out in 100 year or 105 years. I am not comforted by a mere extra >few years before human society collapses for lack of sufficient energy. There are two flaws in this thinking: first, that we are talking 105 vs.100 years, and second that human society will just "collapse" when we run out. If you study the issue of reserves of fossil fuels, you will find that the claims of 30 years or 40 years or 100 years are really bogus. Known reserves TODAY are good for several hundred years, presuming nothing other than the price of oil will be no more than double the current price. But at double it's current price, there are hundreds of years of supply that can be economically extracted. Double the current price will certainly affect our economy, but hardly to the point of "collapse." Furthermore, our ability to find and extract reserves is vastly better today than it was 100 years ago, and there is no reason to believe it will not continue to improve. These factors alone mean that we are hundreds of years from running out. The second flaw is that, in saying that human society will just "collapse" one day when we "run out," we are ignoring the way a market economy works. As the supply gets tighter, prices go up, which makes (a) alternatives to fossil fuels cost effective, and (b) justifies higher costs in finding and extracting fossil fuels, (c) justifies greater R&D expenditures for alternative power sources (e.g., solar, wind, thermal, tidal and fusion sources of power, and fuel cells and batteries for storage). In fact, the world will NEVER run out of fossil fuel. Either cost-effective alternatives will be developed long before we begin to run out, or hundreds of years from now fossil fuels will become expensive enough that alternatives supplant them. Jim Elwell Electrical Engineer Industrial manufacturing manager Salt Lake City, Utah, USA www.qsicorp.com
